"From the Ted Talk by Charles Elachi: The story behind the Mars Rovers"

Unscramble the Blue Letters

Next step, we go and actually build some kind of test meolds and actually test them, you know, in the lab at JPL, in what we call our Mars Yard. We kick them, we hit them, we drop them, just to make sure we unrdtesand how, where would they break. And then we back off, you know, from that point. And then we actually do the actual building and the flight. And this next Rover that we're flying is about the size of a car. That big sihled that you see outside, that's a heat shield which is going to protect it. And that will be bicllsaay built over the next year, and it will be launched June a year from now. Now, in that case, because it was a very big roevr, we couldn't use airbags. And I know many of you, kind of, last time afterwards said well, that was a cool thing to have — those airbags. Unfortunately this Rover is, like, ten times the size of the, you know, mass-wise, of the other Rover, or three times the mass. So we can't use airbags. So we have to come up with another ingenious idea of how do we land it. And we didn't want to take it pvsoperlliuy all the way to the surface because we didn't want to canmtntaioe the surface; we wntaed the Rover to ideimtlmeay land on its legs.

Open Cloze

Next step, we go and actually build some kind of test ______ and actually test them, you know, in the lab at JPL, in what we call our Mars Yard. We kick them, we hit them, we drop them, just to make sure we __________ how, where would they break. And then we back off, you know, from that point. And then we actually do the actual building and the flight. And this next Rover that we're flying is about the size of a car. That big ______ that you see outside, that's a heat shield which is going to protect it. And that will be _________ built over the next year, and it will be launched June a year from now. Now, in that case, because it was a very big _____, we couldn't use airbags. And I know many of you, kind of, last time afterwards said well, that was a cool thing to have — those airbags. Unfortunately this Rover is, like, ten times the size of the, you know, mass-wise, of the other Rover, or three times the mass. So we can't use airbags. So we have to come up with another ingenious idea of how do we land it. And we didn't want to take it ____________ all the way to the surface because we didn't want to ___________ the surface; we ______ the Rover to ___________ land on its legs.

Solution

rover

propulsively

wanted

understand

shield

models

basically

immediately

contaminate

Original Text

Next step, we go and actually build some kind of test models and actually test them, you know, in the lab at JPL, in what we call our Mars Yard. We kick them, we hit them, we drop them, just to make sure we understand how, where would they break. And then we back off, you know, from that point. And then we actually do the actual building and the flight. And this next Rover that we're flying is about the size of a car. That big shield that you see outside, that's a heat shield which is going to protect it. And that will be basically built over the next year, and it will be launched June a year from now. Now, in that case, because it was a very big Rover, we couldn't use airbags. And I know many of you, kind of, last time afterwards said well, that was a cool thing to have — those airbags. Unfortunately this Rover is, like, ten times the size of the, you know, mass-wise, of the other Rover, or three times the mass. So we can't use airbags. So we have to come up with another ingenious idea of how do we land it. And we didn't want to take it propulsively all the way to the surface because we didn't want to contaminate the surface; we wanted the Rover to immediately land on its legs.